How the Index measures a residency program

The Property Residency Index is a measurement instrument, not a marketing directory. This page sets out what qualifies a program for coverage, the seven criteria each program is measured on, how every claim is statused, and what the instrument honestly cannot see.

Applies to: Edition 1, Q3 2026 Re-verified: every edition Scoring weights: publish with Edition 1

What qualifies for coverage

A program enters the Index when buying real estate is a qualifying route to a residence permit under the program's own published rules. The property purchase must itself satisfy the investment condition; programs where property exposure is only available through a fund or securities wrapper are out of scope, because the applicant is buying a financial instrument, not a property.

Citizenship-by-investment is out of scope. It is a different product with different obligations and a different buyer, and mixing the two produces the confusion this index exists to remove. Where a jurisdiction runs both, the Index measures the residence product only and notes the citizenship program as context.

Programs whose property route has closed move to the Closed Routes Record, which doubles as the evidence base for the rule-stability criterion.

The seven criteria

Each covered program is measured on seven criteria. The findings publish as raw, comparable facts first; the composite score is secondary, and its weights publish with Edition 1.

1. Capital threshold

The minimum qualifying property investment, stated in local currency and USD with the conversion date. Measured from the operating authority's own published threshold: the immigration service, land authority, or the legal instrument itself. Where thresholds are tiered by zone or permit length, every tier is recorded.

2. True total cost

Government fees, property transfer taxes and mandatory charges as a percentage of a threshold-level purchase, itemized line by line - never a bare percentage. Where exit-side taxes exist, the round trip is costed. Measured from official fee schedules and tax texts; professional briefings are used as corroboration only.

3. Time to permit

The published or credibly reported processing time from a complete application. Where an official service-level commitment exists, it is quoted; where none is published, that absence is recorded rather than filled with an estimate. Where evidence of actual-versus-advertised timing exists, it is noted.

4. Family scope

Who a single qualifying investment covers: spouse, children and their age caps, parents, and whether dependants receive equal terms. Measured from the program's regulations or official policy text, since this is where marketing material most often overstates.

5. Presence requirement

The minimum stay required to keep the permit, including the renewal-trap variants: rules that only bind at renewal, and rules tied to the property continuing to serve as the holder's residence. Measured from primary program texts.

6. Term and permanence

Permit length, renewal conditions, whether the property must be held for the permit to survive, and any path to permanent residence or citizenship. Measured from the governing law and the operating authority's published conditions.

7. Rule stability

Documented rule changes from 2020 to 2026: threshold hikes, zone changes, restrictions, and closures, counted and weighted by severity. Measured from official gazettes and dated press. This criterion is fed by each program's change history and by the Closed Routes Record.

Two data fields

Alongside the seven criteria, the Index carries two data fields that are recorded but not scored in Edition 1.

Nationality access

Per program: explicitly restricted or banned nationalities, nationality-specific conditions, and documented practical complications where a credible source exists. A restriction is never asserted without a source, and a confirmed restriction is never omitted.

Mobility dividend

What travel freedom the residence permit itself adds to the holder, independent of their passport - for example, movement rights attached to an EU permanent-residence card. This field is Confirmed-only: if the mobility effect cannot be verified against an official source, the cell stays empty rather than echo advisory-industry claims.

The three claim statuses

Every published claim in the Index carries one of three statuses. They mean exactly this:

Confirmed - verified against a primary source: the operating authority's own text or the legal instrument, with the load-bearing line quoted and the access date recorded.
Reported - supported by credible, dated secondary sources (reputable press or professional legal briefings) but not yet captured in a primary text. Treated as provisional.
Unresolved - sources conflict. Both positions are recorded, with their sources. A conflict is never smoothed into a single convenient answer.

Evidence rules

Primary sources first. The operating government authority's service page, fee schedule, or the gazette text. The load-bearing line is quoted, with URL, access date, and the page's own updated date where shown.
Dated press and professional legal briefings serve as corroboration, never as the sole basis for a Confirmed status.
Commercial intermediaries' marketing material is not accepted as evidence. Agency and broker pages echo each other's errors; they are recorded, when at all, only as examples of circulating claims.
Currency: thresholds are stated in local currency and USD, with the FX rate date.
Change capture: if a program changed in the last 12 months, the before, the after, and the effective date are recorded.

Scoring weights The composite score's weights finalize and publish with Edition 1. The design principle is fixed now: the table of raw, re-derivable facts is the primary output; the composite is a convenience layered on top of it, never a substitute for it.

Re-verification and corrections

Every edition re-verifies every program. Statuses, thresholds and rules are checked against live primary sources each quarter; nothing is carried forward on trust. That re-verification cycle is the product.

Corrections: when we get something wrong, the entry is corrected in place with a dated correction note stating what changed and why. Corrections are never silent.

Honest limits

An index is an instrument, and every instrument has a resolution limit. Ours are these:

Processing realities vary by case. The Index measures published rules and published timelines. Individual files hit nationality checks, bank compliance, and workload backlogs that no published rule captures.
Rules move faster than any quarterly instrument. A program can change between editions. The access date on every claim tells you exactly when it was last true.
The Index reads what authorities publish. Where practice diverges from the published rule, we record the divergence only when a credible source documents it.
This is general information, not legal, tax or immigration advice. Decisions of this size deserve licensed, jurisdiction-specific advice.